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Friday, July 23, 2010

A popular argument against the New Testament miracle claims is to say that ancient peoples were credulous and would be disinclined to doubt miracle claims in general. Glenn Miller responds, mostly, to Richard Carrier on this point, suggesting that present-day skeptics overrate ancient credulity.

The response by Glenn Miller to this (so-called) argument that Reppert references is here.

I have a few thoughts to add:
1) my post called ''Science! and Miracles ... and Skepticism!'
2) Richard Dawkins' (and his acolytes') amusing, and frequent, assertions that anti-Darwinists (and anti-atheists) are guilty of, and primarily motivated by, some logical fallacy he calls the "argument from incredulity" or the "argument from personal incredulity."

Because, as we all know, credulity is such a Good Thing (*).

This "argument from ancient credulity" is but one more instance of the intellectual dishonesty which is epidemic amongst God-deniers. When it suits their purposes, they will fault their opponents as being too credulous (or so they will assert of them). When it suits their purposes, they will fault their opponents as being not credulous enough for continuing to be unimpressed by their assertions which they imagine are arguments.

And, meanwhile, when it suits their purposes, they will be credulous or incredulous, as the need of the moment dictates.

(*) So, keep this in mind, Gentle Reader:
God-deniers (and Darwinists, and "liberals") are frequently credulous; they're frequently believe any damned fool thing, just so long as it doesn't appear to call into question what is really important to them.